When respected television broadcaster Bill Moyers suggested to his producers a series of dialogues with mythologist Joseph Campbell, they lambasted the idea.  The public wouldn’t be interested, Moyers was told.

Undaunted, Moyers went looking for his own funding and eventually produced the series. It turned out to be the most popular program in the history of public television.

Jonathan Young, one of Campbell’s associates, retells the story to illustrate the prevailing attitudes about myth and spirituality.

People will talk about sex, money, politics…anything but their spiritual journey. Not that they’re ashamed; there’s simply a shyness about discussing matters of the soul.

That, however is changing, says Young, a clinical psychologist, Joseph Campbell’s archivist and an expert on sacred stories, who was in Calgary recently for a public lecture, Mythic Stories to Live By, sponsored by the Centre for Positive Living.

He points to the popularity of a course he taught last spring via the Internet about mythology where people from all over the globe, from India to Russia to Mexico, logged on.

It’s not hard to see why people are shy about discussing their spiritual lives, Young says pointing to the office towers outside his downtown hotel.

The dominant god in the West is wealth and materialism.

But as western civilization heads into decline, there is less preoccupation with progress. In the search for meaning, people are turning inwards and towards nature to find some answers.

Sacred Stories

“That opens the door to sacred stories,” says Young.

Campbell died in 1987, but Young continues to promote his work, picking up where he left off.

He’s editing a new book, SAGA – Best New Writings on Mythology, aimed at helping people grasp the stories and myths that give meaning to the journey of life. It will be published next year by White Cloud Press.

Mythic stories used to be told around the campfire by wise village elders. Now they’re read in paperbacks during vacations or heard during ceremonial rites of passage.

Nevertheless, their lure is eternal, nourishing something deep within us.

“We reconnect with universal patterns that move the human heart and soul,” Young writes in the introduction to his new book. “In some new way, we see the richness of beauty and significance in ordinary life.”

They give us clues about how to roam the peaks and valleys of our lives.

“Mythology allows us to reconnect with dimension beyond ordinary time,” he writes. “In this moment in history, consumer values dominate the media. Ancient stories give us a chance to visit with eternal characters involved in primal adventures. This can provide perspectives that go beyond trendy concerns with possessions or appearance.”

Issues that are too large to grasp in a single lifetime become accessible. Not only do folklore and legends demonstrate how to draw on divine energy, but they also show how to align with nature.

All stories, says Young, have symbolic meaning, hidden wisdom that illuminates the soul’s yearnings to go home to its beloved.

Stories teach how to pay attention to everything that happens in life and perceive the options available.

“One’s least honored attribute may come to the rescue on some fateful day when circumstances require that very quality,” he observes.

Coming back to the same story time after time reveals new meanings. Moreover, every person seeks to find that single story that speaks most profoundly about their own life. Ultimately, he says, “We each have the opportunity to shape a novel of great complexity that stays fascinating to the last scene.”

Web of Being

The wisdom found in myths and stories help to realize how everyone is part of a vast, interconnected web of being, he says.

For instance, Young recollects the famous Biblical story of the woman who lost a valuable coin. She lights a lamp and sweeps day and night until she finds it. When she finds it, she invites her friends to come and celebrate.

In those days it was the custom for women to wear coins that had been something like a dowry, Young explains in a recent article. Rediscovering Stories, in Creative Thought.

“The story is a marvelous illustration of the idea of lost self-worth regained. A precious piece of her sense that she was valuable was gone.…She had suffered diminished self-image.”

“It is like how we feel when a setback in a cherished project deflates us or a thoughtless comment gets us down. It takes some work to return to the full feeling of worthiness we had before.”

He goes on to explain how the rest of the story and its symbols contain spiritual significance. “The lighting of the lamp, for example, can have many meanings. It can suggest an openness, the guidance of a transcendent presence, which is often represented by light or flame in mythology.”

But people need not search ancient stories for meaning. They’re amply available in popular culture.

Young has made it his special mission to take stories that don’t seem to have any spiritual value and demonstrate otherwise.

While in Calgary, he talked about the Wizard of Oz, a children’s story, as a journey of initiation and discovery for adults.

Likewise, it’s not only in movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s there in movies like the Shawshank Redemption.

Whether it’s simple stories like parables, or complex creation myths, where the imagination is allowed free rein, a whole new collection of images appear.

“This is one way the angels speak to us,” says Young. “The pass key is receptivity. If we can be open to this divine flow and reflect on the meanings it presents to us, the inner life is greatly enriched.

“It is then that we have found the lost coin.”

Joseph Campbell explains how myth lets you know where you are across the ages of life–at 40 or at 80…

This video is a brief excerpt from interviews filmed with Joseph Campbell shortly before his death in 1987, previously unreleased by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Our lives are stories and we could spend our lives telling them. Stories reflect the journey from birth through childhood, through the adult challenges, aging, to wisdom. Stories, folklore, mythology and fairy tales have common elements in all cultures according to mythologist and scholar Joseph Campbell. They are the one great story of mankind — the Monomyth. Psychologist and author Jonathan Young Ph.D. assisted Joseph Campbell for many years and later became the Founding Curator of the Joseph Campbell Archives and Library in Santa Barbara. He is now a consultant to international corporations and uses mythic stories to train executives in sensitivity to other cultures. His recent book, SAGA — Best New Writings on Mythology, is published by White Cloud Press.

Jonathan Young has absorbed Campbell’s teachings and lives them. Follow your bliss and enjoy the moment are Campbell’s legacy. Dr. Young does what he loves; traveling around, telling stories, and loving every minute. I met Dr. Young over afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

STOCKER:

How did you come to work with Joseph Campbell?

YOUNG:

I was working with Rollo May and some friends were studying with Joseph Campbell and suggested I come and hear him. I thought, why would I want to? I’m already studying with the leading person, and in terms of applying Myth, Folklore, Epic, and Legend to Psychotherapy Rollo May really was the person. I went anyway and needless to say, in a couple of hours, it was clear his views went to a whole different level. After the first weekend I had this feeling the world had turned into a holy picture. Everywhere I turned, there was symbolic significance. He describes this as an initiatory process where you get this moment and the radiance comes. The President of Pacifica invited me to become Campbell’s assistant because he saw how captivated and excited I was. Then I was helping Campbell at a whole series of seminars for a number of years. Dr. Gail Schultz and the Center for Self-Awareness, [in Victoria] have this fabulous program up here. She brings all kinds of fantastic speakers in.

STOCKER:

She had Deepak Chopra and John Bradshaw – twice and I think she’s bringing Bradshaw up again in the Spring.

YOUNG:

She’s the one alright. I had done several tours of Western Canada before but hadn’t come over to Victoria. Everyone says talk to Dr. Schultz and I did and she said “You’ve got to come to Victoria.”

STOCKER:

Why Myth? Why now? Why this? Mythology has suddenly become so popular – all of Campbell’s books have been re-released.

YOUNG:

It is interesting. His best known book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces was a best-seller in 1949 when it was first released. Which was odd because the first several publishers said no one is interested in this tradition, this ritual – this is the age of science, nobody is ever going to be interested. Maybe Bulfinch back at the turn of the century but not today. But again and again it surprised the people that thought they knew what the public wanted. It was a best-seller in 1949, and again in the 1960s when the psychedelic crowd discovered it because it was a road map to the inward journey. Then a best-seller again when The Power of Myth series was aired.

STOCKER:

What was his reaction to The Power of Myth?

YOUNG:

He died in 1987, the same year The Power of Myth series began broadcasting. Ironically, he didn’t see the effect. He would have been pleased the ideas were being so widely disseminated. Probably he wouldn’t have been too delighted with the personal adulation because he had no interest in being anyone’s guru.

STOCKER:

Watching The Power of Myth, he comes across as so human. And his work was an expression of that, he said we’re all people, we all do the same things and tell the same stories.

YOUNG:

He was very invested in the idea that humanity is more the same than different. That was a pretty radical idea in the 1930′s. The Colonial powers were still alive and well. Europeans and North Americans were not considered to be the same as the so-called primitives. In the area of Legend and Mythological scholarship, Campbell’s emphasis on the Mono-myth, the one great story, is still disputed with great intensity. The specialists, like scholars of Oceanic or Indigenous traditions, say these tales here aren’t like those over there. It’s a conversation that can never end because, yes, there are differences, but Campbell said the reason there is one great story is it’s the story of the human life.

STOCKER:

He talked about God and the supernatural constantly, did he have any particular devotional practices?

YOUNG:

People always asked him, did he pray or did he meditate, and he would reply ‘I underline sentences.’ The Way of the Scholar. He read 10 hours a day, almost everyday for 70 years. If you go to the archives in Santa Barbara California and open a book, there are those underlined sentences. Book after book with little margin notes in tight writing. Open Nietzsche and passages are underlined with little notes in German. This was a scholar to the last moment of his life.

STOCKER:

He said myth wasn’t to give meaning to life but to give us an experience of life, an experience of vitality in being alive.

YOUNG:

There are a couple of elements in that comment. He didn’t talk about abstractions, he talked about embodied experience. It is physical, it is in a life. Which means he isn’t talking just about a collection of stories, or a set of texts. He is talking about a perspective, a way of looking at something. Better to refer to it as the mythic imagination because ‘mythology’ suggests books and it is in those books but the essence is something hovering beyond them.

STOCKER:

He was critical of religions because he felt they focused on the metaphor of God not on what lies behind the metaphor.

YOUNG:

He used to say the trouble with Jahweh is he thinks he’s God. He was critical of all the religions equally but especially the monotheistic beliefs.

STOCKER:

The criticism of older stories and traditions, which are popular right now, is they are looking back. You can say it’s timeless wisdom and in a sense that is true, but in another sense it isn’t.

YOUNG:

Tales need not be taken as old. George Lucas took the stories from The Hero With A Thousand Faces and made Star Wars out of them, which is quite futuristic. So the perspective isn’t necessarily old; we all live in stories. Life and political discourse and everything that happens in civilization happens within a vision which is to say within a story. Stories may be emerging and changing but they are old templates we continually re-work and revise. Part of the reason the interest in the old stories might be so strong is because we are in a time of cultural fragmentation. When you are lost, you pull out the road map. The mythic imagination helps us to see where we are. Where we are in the sequence of things and what might come next. What does the traveler do now? We need to know. I don’t think it is a return to the past.

STOCKER:

I still have trouble with that. That implies some part of us and some larger mystery hasn’t changed in all this time.

YOUNG:

It’s a paradox. We are in a time of rapid change and there is a great interest in the old stories. Is it just nostalgia? Are people resisting the change? I don’t think so. When the ancients, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, had some new endeavor, they had a council and reviewed the old stories. They knew it wouldn’t be a complete repeat, but there would be some elements of the stories that would help them; there was a metaphysical aspect involved. They believed the inner companions, the spirit guides, would come to them and aid them in the new endeavor. What that might mean psychologically, is the parts of ourselves that are wise and are connected with significance could be a bit more available to us.

STOCKER:

The danger is it turns into a kind of smorgasbord, a kind of shopping mentality. There’s crystals, and Zen, and Yoga, and all this stuff available, all of it claiming to cultivate that connection.

YOUNG:

I think people are feeling somewhat rudderless. Some are grabbing fairly desperately at techniques and ideas they really don’t understand and talking about them superficially. I’m a Psychologist so I’m interested in anything that stimulates aspects of ourselves that might not otherwise be readily available. I’m not particularly interested in crystals, I’m interested in stories. If I can read a story of a wise teacher before I go in to teach a course, perhaps I can be a wise teacher. I won’t be Socrates, but perhaps I will be a little better Jonathan. There is so much to us and the question is what will bring out the best of ourselves. If you put a picture of an angel on the wall and feel a presence of the sacred, more power to you, we need the sacred. I think Guardian Angels exist though I see it in psychological terms. I think it is the sacred guardian aspect of my own inner life, but still I want it around, and whatever ritual brings it out, great.

STOCKER:

I interviewed Warren Farrell several months ago and he revises the Hero into a Stage I and Stage II Hero. The Stage I hero, like Prometheus, goes forward in a straight line toward a goal. He goes out, kills the monster, wins the prize, comes back, and that’s it. The Stage I hero is special; there is an unusual birth and everybody else looks up to them. He compares that to the family structure at the turn of the century and how that has changed. The Stage II hero isn’t special, because we’re all special. The Stage II hero has more choice. It’s more pluralistic. The Stage II hero’s task is choosing how much time to devote to each different task. Skill is still important but also luck and syncronicity are big factors.

YOUNG:

There is a lot of re-owning of projection at the early stage. When there is some leader, or hero, we may be denying our strengths, our wisdom, our sacredness and attribute these qualities to the exemplar. It is a powerful stage in personal and cultural development when we begin to own that. But the responsibility is at a whole different level. Buddhism is aware of the way we project and is constantly emphasizing the divinity within. There is an enormous sense of freedom but what about that leader, that messiah, that was going to fix everything? It is a terrible loss and many don’t make it to the stage of owning their power and turn back. Those who can stand the jolt, have some marvelous things to develop and discover.

STOCKER:

You were the curator of the Joseph Campbell archives in Santa Barbara. How did that come about?

YOUNG:

In 1990 the family decided there should be a Joseph Campbell archives and after many possibilities were explored it was decided it would be at Pacifica. I was closest to Campbell so I was chosen to be the Archivist. For the next 5 years I was travelling to New York and Honolulu and working with Mrs. Campbell and really back inside Joseph Campbell’s mind. All his papers were stuck in corners and idiosyncratic filing systems in his tiny apartment in Greenwich Village in New York. Years of papers and manuscripts and lecture notes were all packed in there. When the archival project was completed, I didn’t want to stay as administrator, my interest was in setting it all up. My last main project at Pacifica, on the basis of the Campbell papers, was to start a Department of Mythological studies. After that was completed I left to do what I really want to do which is go out and tell stories like Joe did. The fun is in the narrative so that’s why I’m in Victoria.

STOCKER:

In the myth of the hero we go out and find our individuality and come back and there is another step after that, the inward journey.

YOUNG:

One sort of initiatory experience has to do with the external world, going out into life and accomplishing, finding values, being of service. All of this is what you are referring to as the first stage. It is the business of the first part of life and is important and not to be missed. Then at some point there is a turning. Carl Jung thought that all of this archetypal journey was the business of the second half of life which he imagined beginning around 35.

STOCKER:

Yes, and almost to the day isn’t it?

YOUNG:

There the inward turn begins. Then you really face your demons, discover you are aging, you will not always be here, you discover the limitations of your powers. As an adolescent you discover how much power you have, later you discover how little power you have. It is not a solitary journey, this initiatory path. It is always done by a tribal community, by a collective. It is done in groups; people went out on vision quests together, then they would separate, so the initiates faced the danger alone for only a part of the time. I think in North America in particular, the solo quality, the solitary part, is over emphasized and the group endeavor is forgotten.

STOCKER:

I was thinking of the first half as being from conformity to individuality, the Hero goes out and finds individuality and returns, integrating the prize into the world. The second half is from individuality to universality. Those are the psychological stages of growth of Eastern traditions. The second half of the journey would be high Hinduism, high Buddhism.

YOUNG:

Those were the traditions closest to Joseph Campbell’s heart. That journey to individuality is being good at practical things, that is the career stage, that is going outward, that is gaining strengths, accumulating powers whether they be status or wealth or whatever. The second half, to universality, is to service where you find ways to give away what you have accumulated. Because you’re not taking it anywhere.

STOCKER:

Jean Houston and also the Book of Peter talk about how Christ was the fulfillment of the prophesies, he was the myth and there was the man standing right there. The two worlds, the mythic and the real, came together.

YOUNG:

Perhaps the current historical moment is equivalent to that time. There have been so many moves toward organization, as in Roman times. We live in an controlled world tending toward the secular, away from the sacred. We are so clever, so smart. We have found ways to have such a large impact with machines. To use that kind of power well requires more serious reflection. We are in a time when slowing down to reflect on the values that underlie civilization gets very little attention. When Joseph Campbell got his first computer he said it had a very sever theology. He felt it was an old testament God with little mercy.

STOCKER:

What were Joseph Campbell seminars like?

YOUNG:

They were symbolic studies of mythic tales. One was a Navaho story where two brothers went through an extended vision quest and returned to their father. One was on the Holy Grail and the tradition of nature worship that preceded it. The stories of Merlin, Guinevere are all beholden to much older traditions in Europe. Not only the Welsh and Irish initiation stories but also Swiss images go literally thousands of years back. It is very powerful when you see them. Arthur may have been a captain or a General of Post Roman Britain. But Arcturus was the ancient bear god after which the Swiss city Berne is named. So if you take the story back through much earlier versions they include a lot of divinities that later devolved into more human characters. Going through this process shows that these really are sacred stories, they are not just children’s adventure tales. Another was on the Goddess tradition. Campbell was one of the first writers to recognize the importance of the Goddess tradition in Europe. He was very close to Marija Gimbutas, the archaeologist who found the Goddess artifacts. Now the Gimbutas archives are also in Santa Barbara. I have a bit of a problem with just using the hero myths because it has favored men and violence. I tend to choose stories with a female protagonist because as a man, it is important to learn how to rely on resources other than their physical prowess to solve problems.

STOCKER:

In The Power of Myth Campbell talked about suffering. There are all of these things happening in the world and what do you do? How do you say Yes to vulgarity and cruelty?

YOUNG:

You have to say yes but that doesn’t mean being passive. It is accepting life and the world and avoiding the temptation to see in pairs of opposites, to fall into dualistic thinking. This is good, that is bad, this is mine, this isn’t mine. This is masculine, this isn’t masculine. As Campbell put it, to be between the pairs of opposites is embracing the range of life. Psychotherapy is about that, and wise political leadership is about having a larger vision. What do we do with these seemingly unbridgeable differences that must be bridged? We may have to say yes to the things we find most unacceptable. That is the individual’s big challenge, there are things in us that we consider garbage. We say, that’s not me. But if you say that it doesn’t go away, it just goes unconscious. In stories, many times the magical character wants the garbage. When the Fairy Godmother shows up to help Cinderella, she says O.K. we can get you to the Ball, but I will need some mice, a couple of lizards, a rat, a pumpkin — she wants garbage. Psychologically, she wants the parts of us we wish we could get rid of and then works with those to do magic. As if to show us, everything in there is made by the sacred energies and they don’t make junk.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. The leader of the Lakota Dakota Nakota Oyate, the great Sioux nation, is a man with a vision…

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

A Great Urgency: To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders

My Relatives,

Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. 

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth.

As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc¹I Maka), and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember World Peace and Prayer Day/ Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children¹s future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),

Chief Arvol Looking Horse sees a great danger threatening “Grandmother Earth” and a great hope for restoring her wholeness. So he is calling all nations to prayer of any kind in an effort to return the planet to balance, the people to spirit. I asked him why this path is the right path to take. “A man or a woman without spirit is very dangerous,” Looking Horse explained in a recent phone interview.

According to this Sioux chief, the absence of spirit is causing suffering everywhere. “We are in a time of survival,” he said. “But we don’t want to believe it because we have forgotten our spirits. We have forgotten that Grandmother Earth has a spirit.” Disconnected souls are hurting others without even knowing they are hurting others.” Those being hurt include animals, trees and waterways.

The Sioux have an inclusive worldview, but it was not shared by the transplanted Europeans who undertook genocide on Indian land, culminating in the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890. That final brutality broke the “hoop” binding Indians together; however, Sioux prophecy foretold that in a hundred years the people would be reunited. Although surviving tribe members and their descendants were stripped of religious freedoms (returned to them only 32 year ago by the U.S. government), the rituals were kept and the prophecy not forgotten.

So the Sioux nations set out on horseback to “mend the broken hoop” of their nation in 1986 at a sacred site known to non-Indians as Devils Tower or the Great Horn Butte; their ritual went on for four years and concluded in 1990, 100 years after Wounded Knee. During the course of that long ritual, Looking Horse was surprised by a vision that came to him of peace and unity that included not only the Indian nations but all the nations of the world, each gathering with ritual plants around sacred fires on every continent. The Sioux chief felt called to oversee a much broader mending.

But who was going to listen even to the chief of a people largely ignored in the country where they lived? “It’s everyday life for us that we hold Grandmother Earth sacred, we hold the trees and the plants, everything has a spirit. We need people to be really respectful for each other. The Great Spirit put us here all together. If we’re going to survive, we need to have spirit and compassion. We’re asking people to go to their sacred places or sacred spaces to pray.” 

Source: YouTube

by healthbeautylife:  The little seaside city is unique in it’s approach to sustainable energy and organic cuisine…

It is reverential to the ancient Chumash from whom it derives its name and it radiates a casual acceptance of all who reside here, from the seriously wealthy, to those who dwell in the hippy-chill neighborhoods and trailer enclaves spilled along 21 miles of majestic Malibu coastline. Though you could spend a lifetime discovering the wonders of Malibu, we’ve assembled one long summer’s day of adventures and destinations designed to illuminate and uncover that elusive vibe that is uniquely Malibu. So, grab your flip-flops and beach towel. Don’t forget the sunscreen, and come along as we discover one sun-splashed a day in Malibu.

How Humaliwu became Malibu…

Malibu, Zuma, Tujunga, Hueneme. If you live or have traveled through Southern California, these are names that you’ve probably seen and wondered about. All are Native American Indian words coined by theChumash people who lived in Malibu and along the California coast for millennia. To learn more about the original Malibu beach combers, our next stop is: Wishtoyo Foundation’s Chumash Village. Located on four pristine acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Nicholas Canyon County Beach, the site is an authentic re-creation of a working Native American village. With replicas of Chumash dwellings called “aps,” sea worthy canoes known as “tomols,” tools, and handicrafts, in addition to performance of ceremonies, blessings, solstice and celebrations, the village offers students and the general public a unique, multi-sensory experience of a native Chumash Village.

Tours explain a typical day in a Chumash village, demonstrating how houses were built, and clothes were made and food was prepared using the available natural resources. Solstice and other celebrations are marked by ceremonies, as in ancient times; dances are performed by Dolphin Dancers from the Santa Clara Valley River Chumash Turtle Clan.

Chumash History

The first human inhabitants of the Channel Islands and Santa Monica Mountains areas, The Chumash numbered approximately 20,000 from Malibu in the South, to San Luis Obispo in the North.

 Visiting the Chumash Village

The Chumash Village is open for guided tours and presentations, by appointment. On-site cultural appreciation and environmental awareness programs are offered to elementary school students in the Los Angeles County and Ventura County School Districts. The village site is easily accessible by car from Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, with extensive public parking available. For more information on the Wishtoyo Foundation and or the Chumash Village and Cultural Center in Malibu, please visit wishtoyo.org

 The Chumash Quicksilver Initiative

The Chumash people, unlike many tribes who lived inland, thrived close to the banks of the Pacific Ocean for thousands of years, dependent on the sea, wildlife and marine resources for food, medicines, clothing, shelter, tools and utensils. Quiksilver too, relies on the ocean and the natural world to thrive economically and has worked diligently through The Quiksilver Foundation, a non-profit organization, committed to benefiting and enhancing the quality of life for communities of boardriders across the world to support environmental, educational, health and youth-related projects.

Now, The Quiksilver Foundation is showing their commitment to sustainability and to the Malibu Wishtoyo Chumash Village with a generous donation and the creation of uniquely designed Chumash T-shirts made from organic cotton, and board shorts made of recycled polyester with graphics inspired by Chumash art, hieroglyphics and culture. The shorts and T’s will be available in spring 2013. Quiksilver will donate a percentage of their net profits to the Wishtoyo Chumash Village, with a donation goal of $10,000.00 for the year. For more information: quiksilverfoundation.org

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

source: healthbeautylife

by Anna LeMind: The suppression of the Native Americans and the decimation of their culture is a black page in the history of the United States…

The discrimination and injustices towards this ancient race, which had lived on the American continent long before the European conquerors came to this land, are still present to this day despite theefforts of different groups and organizations trying to restore the justice.

The destruction of their culture is one of the most shameful aspects of our history, the extent of the damage that was done is still being down-played and denied entry into textbooks and history-lessons to this day.

The origin and history of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have been studied for years by researchers from different countries, and a recent DNA study showed that the genealogy of the western aboriginals is one of the most unique in the world.

The question of whether Native Americans derived from a single Asian population or from a number of different populations has been a subject of research for decades. Now, having compared the DNA samples from people of modern Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of researchers concluded on the validity of the single ancestral population theory.

The study follows up on earlier research that found a unique variant of a genetic marker in the DNA of modern descendants of Native Americans. “While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Kari Britt Schroeder of the University of California, one of the authors of the study.

As a result of the previous research, the so-called “9-repeat allele” (or variant) was found in all of the 41 Native American and Asian (from the western side of the Bering Strait) populations that were sampled. At the same time, the allele was absent in all 54 of the Eurasian, African and Oceanian groups that were also sampled in the study.

he researchers supposed that the distribution of the allele was due to the fact that all these ethnic groups (modern Native Americans, Greenlanders and western Beringians) derived from a common founder population, which had been isolated from the rest of the Asian continent thousands of years prior to their migration to the Americas.

This explanation was persuasive enough; however, there was no strong evidence to support it. There were two other plausible versions to explain the distribution of the 9-repeat allele among the modern descendants of Native Americans.

If the 9-repeat allele had originated as a multiple mutation, its presence in the Americas would not suggest common ancestry. Thus, if there had been more than one ancestral founder population and the 9-repeat allele had been present only in one of them, it could possibly have passed to the other ethnic groups and spread among them. If there also had been a second, beneficial allele located very close to the 9-repeat allele, it would certainly have been carried into new populations. At the same time, long stretches of DNA surrounding the 9-repeat allele would be carried along with the beneficial allele due to the mechanisms of natural selection.

In order to check the validity of this hypothesis, researchers led by Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan analyzed DNA samples from people from Asian, Native American, Greenlandic and two western Beringian populations, and found that all the samples with the 9-repeat allele had a distinct pattern of base pairs in short stretches of DNA.

As Schroeder noted, “If natural selection had promoted the spread of a neighboring advantageous allele, we would expect to see longer stretches of DNA than this with a similarly distinct pattern. And we would also have expected to see the pattern in a high frequency even among people who do not carry the 9-repeat allele. So we can now consider the positive selection possibility unlikely.”

Source: The Mind Unleashed… More

by  Jocelyn Daher: Long ago the humans and the animals got along fine…   

All the peoples, human and animal, could communicate with each other and were at peace. The animals of that long-ago time were much larger than the animals of today. Indeed, the animals of today are but shadows of those who once were.

There came a time when we humans forgot our place and broke the harmony. We humans began to reproduce at an alarming rate, and we gave ourselves to the production of all sorts of weapons meant for the destruction of the animals: spears and atlatls, bows and arrows, blowguns and traps of all kinds. We began to hunt, not just for food, but simply for the fun of killing. We humans also killed many animals just by pure carelessness, never stopping to think of the results of our actions. Even as we walked from place to place, we were not careful where we stepped, so that many of the tiny many-legged and legless ones were crushed to death or maimed. Some humans went so far as to purposely kill little animals merely from a feeling of disgust or loathing, going out of their way to step on a bug or squash a harmless spider. It was clear that we humans believed ourselves to be the only ones who mattered in all of creation, and as we continued clearing land and building our cities; it looked as if there would soon be no more room for anyone else to live in the earth.

The animals decided something had to be done about this human problem. The bears met separately from the other animals. The Great White Bear, presiding at the council asked, “What’s the problem?”

“It’s these humans; they kill us indiscriminately.”

“How do they kill us?”

“With bows and arrows.” 

“Of what are their bows made?”

“The bow of locust wood and the bowstring of our guts.”

The bears decided they would make bows of their own with which to kill the humans. They got some locust wood, and one of the bears sacrificed himself to give material for the bowstring. When the bow was finished and arrows were made, one of the bears stood up to shoot. He could pull the string, but releasing it was a problem. His long claws would get hung and throw him off target. The other bears, ducking his wild arrows, cried out, “Stop, stop. Something must be done. We’ll cut your claws.”

After the bear’s claws were cut, he could shoot a bow as well as any man. “Now the humans have had it!” all the bears said. “We will hunt them, as they have hunted us! All we have to do is cut our claws.”

“Wait!” said the Great White Bear. “How is it that we bears make our living?”

“By climbing trees to get honey and by ripping open rotten logs to find insects and by digging in the earth for rodents and by catching fish.”

“How do we do all these things?”

“With our long claws.”

The bears understood that if they cut their claws they could no longer make a living as bears and would starve to death. The idea to hunt the humans with bows and arrows was scrapped, and they never came up with another solution.

All the other animals came together in a joint council to discuss the human problem. The Grubworm presided at the council. After all, it was his people, the little creeping and crawling peoples of the earth, who had suffered most from the actions of the humans. The animals all sat in a circle. The talking stick was passed, giving each an opportunity to speak. The Toad said, “Something must be done. These humans despise me. They are forever kicking me or throwing things at me, because they think I am ugly. Just look at all the bumps they’ve put on my back!”

One of the little birds rose and said, “Although I’m too small to provide much meat, their little boys kill my people and roast us over the fire until our feathers and feet are burned off.” One after the other, the animals spoke of atrocities committed by the humans. The only one with nothing to say against the humans was the little chipmunk, who was too small to be hunted for food and too quick to be stepped on. When he spoke in defense of the humans, the other animals jumped on him and gave him such a scratching down his back that the stripes are there to this day!

Once it was established that something must be done about the humans in order to save the rest of creation, the floor was open for discussion of what to do. It was finally decided that each of the animal peoples would come up with at least one disease with which to inflict the humans, in order to kill most of them and to teach the rest some respect. Various animals attending the council agreed to come up with every sort of ailment from cancer to p.m.s. When the Grubworm heard this last one, he laughed so hard he fell over backwards and has been crawling around like that ever since.

So, all the animals went their separate ways to meet in council, each with their own kind, to work out the details of what they would do. The deer met in council, with their chief, Little Deer, presiding. The deer understood the humans to be a pitiful and needy people who live only by the deaths of others. For this reason, the deer decided to allow the humans to continue killing some deer each year, but only what is needed for food, NEVER FOR SPORT. Furthermore, a human hunter, upon killing a deer, is required to show respect for the spirit of the deer by begging the deer’s pardon and making a proper tobacco offering. And so, Little Deer, the chief and adawehi of all the deer will come. Swiftly and invisibly he will come to the place where the deer has died. Gently he will bend down over the blood. In a whisper, he will ask the spirit of the slain deer, “Did this hunter treat you with respect? Did he beg your pardon? Did he offer tobacco?”

If the answer is, “Yes,” all is well, and Little Deer will go on his way. But if the answer is, “No,” Little Deer will track that hunter to his home. There, Little Deer will strike that hunter with rheumatism, which he may never hunt again!

Word was sent to the human people, and we Cherokees have not forgotten this treaty with the deer.

And so, many diseases came into the earth. Many people died. For a while, it looked as though maybe no humans would survive in the earth. The great cities were forgotten and fell into ruin.

The plant peoples who saw all of this, also elected to come together and meet in council. Deciding to take pity on us humans, each plant agreed to give of itself to provide medicine for at least one human disease or ailment. All we humans had to do was ask in a respectful way.

Source:The Spirit Science

By Garima Roy: “A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: 

Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, the one I feed the most.”  Good and evil exists within us. Carl Jung looked at the subject of good vs evil in a very different light. According to him, one cannot deny the existence of the dark side in oneself. We all are susceptible to negative emotions, consciously or unconsciously, that is why chemistry recognizes so many negative hormones within a human body. Jung named this particular existing “dark side” in humans – Shadow. A shadow is “sum of all personal and collective psychic elements which, because of their incompatibility with the chosen conscious attitude, are denied expression in life.” Jung wrote, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

Our ego likes to think that we are inherently good human beings and we don’t dwell in any negativity. But then one day when somebody hurts us, we go overboard with anger and resentment. In another situation, if we experience failure or someone unexpectedly points a finger at us, we are suddenly filled with fear, confusion and guilt. Our first instinct in such situations usually is to defend ourselves and protect our identity.

We can feel the vulnerability in our stomach but we manage to put up a face and justify as much as we can. Once the situation is over, our conscious mind forgets about it because there are plenty of other things to deal with.

Neuroscientists recently proved that human thoughts have rhythms and frequency which has a major influence on our behavior, and good and evil are facets of human behavior. The vulnerability and anger, which you truly felt, never got a chance to display itself and it got stored in your shadow, which is resurfacing time and again in the form of insecurity and negativity, acting as a catalyst to negative actions.

This storehouse of emotions in your shadow has an immense role to play in your relationship with yourself, particularly in setting yourself free. The world is simply a mirror, reflecting back to us our own inner state. If you are overflowing with love for yourself and others, you’ll experience people who are feeling this love and their love is reflected back towards you. On the other hand, if all you see in your outer world is disharmony, anger and fights, then there must be an inner battle happening deeper inside.

Unless we come to terms with our own dark side, we’re condemned to be its victim. The effect of non-confronted shadow is immense – need to control, need to exert power, need to show supremacy out of INSECURITY. It’s the shadow that is ruling the consciousness and becoming the root cause of turbulence in oneself which is continually projecting itself on others.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

According to medical psychology, our consciousness must confront the shadow for a sound mind and body. The shadow needs to be sublimated in order to break free from its chains. Consciousness is never bounded; it’s inherently free. Jung noted that to achieve wholeness largely depends on the ability to own their own shadow. What does owning our shadow mean?  Your ego doesn’t like your shadow. So, it subsides all the possible chances you take to figure out things that weigh you down. Nonetheless, you can begin the journey by self-observation and introspection.

You can start by making mental notes of negative feelings, which leads to contraction of energy in your body. Once you reach to the root of the feeling, what you want to do with it will be at your command. You might want to convert it into something positive to be at peace and rise to a higher self.

Once you have acknowledged the existence of anger and vulnerability to yourself, you will figure out a conscious solution to deal with it. It will no longer have the power to unconsciously rule over you. Your shadow will become your friend which will help in overcoming the thoughts that bring you down. A thought that feeds your energy is good for expansion of your consciousness and a thought that lowers your energy is contracting your consciousness (false consciousness). Good vs evil is better understood in terms of expansion and contraction of collective feeling of humanity!

“The higher the sun rises, the less shadow it casts.” – Lao Tzu

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Source: Fractal Enlightenment

By Taté Walker: I recently had a friend – a nice white lady I’ve known for years – ask me whether buying moccasins for her infant son would be considered cultural appropriation, and therefore offensive…

She has read my many rants on things like hipster headdresses and Native American mascots, and she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t doing anything to warrant my Lakota wrath or a hashtag like #NotYourBabyFootware or whatever.

I’ll tell you what I told her: There is a fine line between appropriation and appreciation.

When Natives decry the wearing of faux headdresses at music festivals and in fashion spreads, or when we protest the use of our imagery on underwear and football helmets, we’re asking people like Ted Nugent and Pharrell Williams and institutions like the Washington Redskins to stop profiting from stereotypes proven to harm and dehumanize Native people.

Of course Nugent, Washington NFL team owner Dan Snyder, and an unfortunately long string of others would tell you they are, in fact, honoring Native Americans with their dictionary-defined racial slurs and fake, mocking accessories.

But the savvy among us know appropriation encourages the dominant culture to forget Natives are modern, contemporary people struggling to overcome nearly 600 years of campaigns to wipe us off the map. Who cares about epidemic rates of unemployment, academic failure, or youth suicide when your football team wins, am I right?

That said, there are many ways to truly honor and appreciate each of the 566 unique, federally recognized tribes in the US, and that includes adorning your kid’s toes in some comfy mocs (but not their head in a headdress).

With that, I give you four ways to honor Native Americans without dehumanizing them.

1. Support Native American Artists

There are some pretty stiff and costly penalties for those who violate the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which essentially says you have to be a member of a federally or state recognized tribe or certified as a Native artist by a tribe in order to sell items marketed as Native-made, or tribally-specific products.

And before you claim that this law gives some kind of special treatment to Native artists or takes away from free market enterprise, consider all the ways the government has tried to wipe Natives from the map, including criminalizing our spirituality until 1978 and restricting our living and movement to isolated reservations.

Neither of these actions was good for business, especially when many of our wares are connected somehow to our spiritual foundations. We continue to fight for fair access to that same free market you value, and the IACA is our best chance at leveling the playing field.

Despite this, folks still misrepresent our wares, and faux headdresses and made-in-China dreamcatchers proliferate the “Native American” marketplace. This not only offends many of us on a racial level, but it takes away the livelihood of authentic, Native artisans who learned their craft through many generations.

Let me tell you: There is no comparison between a rug manufactured in an overseas shop and one handmade by a sixth generation Navajo weaver.

So go ahead and buy those cute moccasins for your kiddo, but make sure you’re buying from a legit seller and ask to see an authenticity certificate or other form of tribal identification.

That will ensure you’re honoring a specific Native heritage and getting the best product. For more, check out Nooksack artist Louie Gong’s Inspired Natives Project.

2. Learn About (and Consider Backing) Native-Led Movements

In addition to protesting racist mascots and offensive fashion accessories, Native communities are also fighting to end violence against women, staging huge rallies to protect the environment, reforming justice and education, revitalizing indigenous languages, teaching spirituality, and so much more.

We often support these movements simultaneously and understand the relationships and connections between each of these issues our communities face.

I personally advocate for four solid organizations, three of which are led by strong Native women — including Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, the Save Wįyąbi Project, Tatanka Wakpala Model Sustainable Community, and the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies.

In addition, I’m what my people call winkte, or Two Spirit, the tribal equivalent of LGBTQ. It is a vitally important issue for me, and I often speak and present on issues relating to sexual identity/orientation within Native cultures.

I encourage you to check out these groups and consider supporting one or many movements.

If you seek out others, a few tips: Before involving yourself with an organization, do some research on its board of directors, its founder or CEO, and its outcomes. Ask around about it, and make sure it mirrors your personal values.

3. Call Out Appropriation Because It’s Offensive (Not Because You Know I Won’t Like It)

A white friend recently posted a short rant about an offensive Halloween magazine advertising, among other things, an “Indian princess” costume.

She didn’t say, “My Native friends will hate this!” or “I have Native friends and I’m appalled!” She simply noted all the offensive material (Halloween needs some work, folks), and said she planned on burning the magazine and using the money she saved on costumes to buy more candy.

Posts like these, in which people call out the offensiveness of mascots or headdresses without making the problem my responsibility to fight (there are those who simply link me to a post – “Taté Walker, did you see this? What do you think?” – without necessarily being offended themselves) make me want to hug someone.

I love when a non-Native person gets something others would see as a Native-specific issue.

Dehumanization is an issue for everyone to be concerned with, and I am proud to say I have many non-Native friends who step up to hipsters and sports fans alike to call out misappropriation when they see it.

Not sure what qualifies as appropriation? Check out the site Native Appropriations by Adrienne Keene, the lady I want to be when I grow up. She does a wonderful job informing the public about a wide range of indigenous issues.

4. Support Non-Native Companies or Organizations That Actively Honor Native Culture and/or Creations

It’s easy to get caught up in all the ways that celebrities and companies and organizations are screwing over Native people. But it’s also important to promote and support those doing good by their indigenous fans, followers, and customers.

Canada’s Bass Coast Festival banned headdresses at its music shindig earlier this month in a move that had many of us cheering.

Similarly, after a “Native American Heritage Night” fiasco in which some Natives were detained by security and police for challenging a rival fan for wearing a fake warbonnet, the San Francisco Giants added “culturally insensitive” garb and behavior to the list of things like foul language that could get baseball fans ejected from the ballpark.

A few years ago, after hosting an offensive Native-themed party (we’re talking glow-in-the-dark war paint and plastic tomahawks, folks), Paul Frank Industries apologized and immediately collaborated with Native American artists to design a collection of clothing and accessories. I have no problem buying those monkey shirts for my kid knowing this company champions contemporary and authentic Native design.

And I have to throw in a plug for my girl Shoni Schimmel, who is tearing up the hardwood and helping draw mass crowds at every WNBA game she plays for the Atlanta Dream. The Thrilla from Umatilla isn’t the only indigenous player in the league, which is why I suggest checking out a game and supporting an institution that knows its Native players — and fans — are an integral part of their success.

***

Many Americans have a disconnected relationship with indigenous peoples: We’re fine as romanticized historical centerpieces and entertainment props, but mocked and ridiculed when we decry the materialistic use of sacred objects like headdresses or call to remove a dictionary-defined racial slur like redskin from the NFL lexicon.

The message is clear to Natives: You can feel honored, or you can shut up.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There are ways you can honor us that don’t diminish the uniqueness of 566 federally recognized tribes down to a few, pan-Indian, stereotypical images that insult, degrade, and dehumanize my people.

Source: Everyday Feminism 

By Stephanie Marohn: In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé…

Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.

What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.”  The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.  “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé.  These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness.  When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.

“I was so shocked.  That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.”  What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop.  This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation.  As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture.  What a loss!  What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”

Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world.  In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated.  When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening.  The result can be terrifying.  Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane.  Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.

On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of “beings” hanging around the patients, “entities” that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see.  “They were causing the crisis in these people,” he says.  Itappeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients’ pain in the process.  “The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people.  They were really fierce about that.  The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling,” he said.  He couldn’t stay in that environment and had to leave.

In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds–”the world of the spiritthat he or she is merged with, and the village and community.”  That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need.  Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth ofanother healer.  “The other world’s relationship with our world is one of sponsorship,” Dr. Somé explains.  “More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world.”

The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world.  The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings’ attempts to merge were thwarted.  The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.

“The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer,” states Dr. Somé.  “Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody’s attention.  They have to try harder.”  The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized.  “The sensitivity ispretty much read as an invitation to come in,” he notes.

Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity.  Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive.  In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé.  The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.

Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy

With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé.  “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”

What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura.  With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.

Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer.  The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems.  “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes.  “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person.  It’s like a short-circuit.  Fuses are blowing.  This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people.  Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket.  That’s a sad image.”  Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.

It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person’s energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing.  There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura.  In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies

Alex:  Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa

To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village.  “I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world,” says Dr. Somé.

Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14.  He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression.  He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping.  “The parents had done everything–unsuccessfully,” says Dr. Somé.  “They didn’t know what else to do.”

With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa.  “After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports.  He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients . . . . He spent about four years in my village.”  Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing.  He felt, “much safer in the village than in America.”

To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people.  “He wasn’t born in the village, so something else applied.  But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same,” explains Dr. Somé.  The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal.

After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world.  Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn’t speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point).  The whole experience led, however, to Alex’s going to college to study psychology.  He returned to the United States after four years because “he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life.”

The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard.  No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.

Dr. Somé sums up what Alex’s mental illness was all about:  “He was reaching out.  It was an emergency call.  His job and his purpose was to be a healer.  He said no one was paying attention to that.”

After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa.  “Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer.  There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.

Longing for Spiritual Connection

A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in “mental” disorders in the West is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.”  His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is.  In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.

In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.”  What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.”  Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.

Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because “most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past.  You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.”  The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting.  “It’s not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants,” he says.  “The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that.”

That call, which we don’t even know we are making, reflects “a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension.  Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn’t make any difference.”  They respond to either.

As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the “mountain energy” are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them.  They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them.  “The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person,” notes Dr. Somé.  “They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it’s like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life.”

When it is the “river energy,” those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.

“People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this,” he says.  That’s not usually the case.  Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.

A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness

One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking.  “The abandonment of ritual can be devastating.  From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live,” Dr. Somé writes in Ritual:  Power, Healing, and Community. “To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement.  We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it.”

Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture.  Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.

One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are “called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work.”  Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.

Another ritual need relates to initiation.  In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age.  The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé.  He urges communities to bring together “the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis.”

Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains.  “If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling.”

The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process “trigger enlightenment” in participants.  These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors.  Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be “ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren’t able to do while in their physical body.”

“Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues,” he says.  “The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors.  If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them.”  The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past.  Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.

Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected–and indeed the community at large–the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to “a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present,” states. Dr. Somé.

Source: Earth Wear One

by Jade Small: It is believed that the origin of the Native American dream catcher (or Indian dream catchers) is from the Ojibwa Chippewa tribe…

The Ojibwa would tie strands of sinew string around a frame of bent wood that was in a small round or tear drop shape. The patterns of the dream catcher would be similar to how these Native Americans tied the webbing for their snowshoes.

However a Lakota story tells of how Iktomi (spider) came and spoke to an old Lakota spiritual leader who was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder’s willow hoop which had feathers, horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web. He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life, how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle.

But, Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, in each time of life there are many forces, some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But, if you listen to the bad forces, they’ll steer you in the wrong direction and may hurt you. So these forces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of Nature. While the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web.

When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the elder the web and said, The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center. Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will filter your good ideas and the bad ones will be trapped and will not pass.

Traditionally, Native American dream catchers were only a few inches in diameter and it would be finished with a feather hanging from the webbing. Wrapping the frame in leather would be pretty common too as another finishing touch.

Natives believed the night air was filled with good and bad dreams. The legend of the Dream Catcher is that it captures the bad Spirits and filters them. Protecting us from evil and letting through only the good dreams.   It is believed that each carefully woven web will catch bad spirit dreams in the web and disappear by perishing with the first light of the morning sun.

The good spirit dreams will find their way to the center and float down the sacred feather.

Dream Catchers are believed to bless the “sleeping ones” with pleasant dreams, good luck, and harmony throughout their lives. It is how many people remember lessons in our community and get their visions.

 It is said that when you get a good night sleep you can remember when the spirit has talked to you.

Dream catchers were given to new born and or hung on an infant’s cradle board for good dreams. The larger sizes were hung in lodges, for all to have good dreams.  It is never too late to acquire a dream catcher.

The dream catcher that you have received was made by me with you in my thoughts and while sage was burning and being in prayers at all times. It is a sacred object.

This Dream Catcher is not only a dream catcher but also a medicine wheel.

All the parts of the dream catcher has meaning.

 To begin, the web represent the spider our brother of life for ever repairing the eternal web of life.  Thus weaving your life dreams and energy in the universe when you dream.

 The ring represents the earth mother and the humble walk we do upon her. The ring was also covered with multi-colored wool representing in my mind and spirit aspects of your personality, moods and emotions. The beads on the web are of the 7 directions thus calling upon them to bless you.

As we believe that we are related to all things and that all things are part of us then the Dream Catcher and medicine wheel is a representation of such sacred belief.

The first color  is blue representing Father Sky and all that lives in the sky; grandfather sun, grandmother moon, Star nation and Creation.

The second colored beads are purple this is the color of the inner self and the introspection of where the Creator lives, within us all.

The third color is Yellow this represents the direction of the East where the Yellow Nation is and we call upon their ancestors and the wisdom they carry to come in and teach us.  It is also the direction of where the sun rises every day therefore a new beginning.  We put the Sacred Eagle in that direction and call upon the abilities to see far beyond what is in front of us and to focus on the task at hand.

The fourth color is Red for the Red Nation.  In this direction we call upon their ancestors to come and teach us how to take care of the land and do the work necessary for our families to grow in a strong foundation.  It is the direction of honesty, hard work, family, integrity and love.

The fifth color is black.  This color represents two roads.  The direction of the Black nation and we call upon their ancestors to come and help with healing, also how to care for the water.  It is also the direction of the black road, the one of self destruction, abuse and so on.  Therefore we pray for understanding of such since we say Creator of all good things.  We pray for the lessons that these people bring to us.

The sixth color is of the White nation.  We acknowledge the white people and their ancestors.  The knowledge and the wisdom on how to use that knowledge in a good way.

The 7th direction is of the color green representing Mother Earth.  The one who feeds us, clothes, and protects us from the elements.  She supplies all that we need in order to live on this earth.  We give thanks for her.

In your Dream catcher, I have finalized the eye with purple again.  This is to remind you that we are spiritual beings in all aspects of life and that without such believe then we continuously search the reason of our being and try to explain it in many different formats.

Once the ring and the web are weaved, it represents love, honesty and purity.  All of the elements of the dream catcher together represent the earth, fire and water. Things we need to live. So when I make a Dream catcher the feathers are of the Eagle one of our most Sacred Animal Spirit.  The Eagle to me is part of my Native ways and is in my personal medicine wheel in the East which represents the ability to fly high and close to the Creator.  It also represents part of my name and the Society that was founded for the purpose of advancing the Native American Way of living.

It represents the ability to be love and to love, to take the risk and get out of the nest and fly on your own, the ability to live beyond your shadows.  Once put on the dream catcher it represents the air.

If you received a dream catcher you have received an object that represents the 4 elements of life.  Earth, Water, Fire and Air, all the things necessary to sustain life.  May you have a happy, dreamful life with this dream catcher and good Karma.

Source: The Open Mind

by Ralph Metzner:  Increasing numbers of European and African scholars are questioning the received so-called “history” of the Italian navigator Columbus “discovering” America…

As Garikai Chengu points out in his article on the Global Research website (www.globalresearch.ca/before-columbus-how-africans-brought-civilization-to-america/5407584): “One can only wonder how Columbus could have discovered American when people were watching him from America’s shores?”

According to American historian and linguist Leo Weiner, in his 2014 book Africa and the Discovery of America, Columbus himself related that Native Americans had told him about “black-skinned people (who) had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.” European-trained academic historians have for centuries maintained that Africans did not have the navigational skills or ship-building capabilities to cross the Atlantic, although the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the ancient Egyptians’ great sea-faring and navigational skills. As Chengu notes, historians are beginning to move beyond the racial-intellectual prejudice of accounts of the “European age of exploration.”

In his 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus, Gyanese historian Ian Van Sertima assembled an astounding array of evidence for ancient contacts and explorations from Africa to the Americans. Extensive westward African explorations occurred when Abu Bakari II was a Ruler of the Mali empire, which dominated West Africa from the 13^th to the 15^th centuries. In the 14^th century the Arabic scholar Al Umari wrote about the reign of the Malian emperor Musa I and his historic pilgrimage to Mecca. While in Egypt, Musa explained that he had inherited the throne after the abdication of the previous ruler. He explained that in 1310, the emperor Abu Bakari financed the building of 200 vessels of men and another 200 of supplies to explore “the limits of the sea” that served as the empire’s western frontier.

The mission was inconclusive, and the only information available on its fate came from a single boat whose captain refused to follow the other ships once they reached a “river in the sea” and a whirlpool. According to Musa I, his predecessor was undeterred and launched another fleet with himself as head of the expedition. In 1311, Abu Bakari temporarily ceded power to Musa, then serving as vizier and departed with a thousand vessels of men and a like number of supplies. After the emperor failed to return, Musa I became emperor (information compiled from Wikipedia links).

Perhaps the most convincing evidence for an early African presence in the Americas are the colossal (20 ton) Olmec stone heads found in central Mexico, displaying unmistakably Negroid features, quite unlike any other Mesoamerican depictions of faces. The Olmec civilization is the oldest of the Meso-American cultures, and is believed to have flourished around 900 BC, plus or minus 200 years. Conventional academic historians and archaeologists, who do not recognize any pre-Columbian contacts between Africa and the Americas pass over the obvious Negroid features of these sculpted heads, without comment, although, judging from their monumental size and the decorative head-dress or helmets, they clearly represent rulers or semi-divine beings, as well as demonstrating highly advanced methods of moving and working with stone. A Russian-Israeli historian of ancient Near-Eastern cultures, Zachariah Sitchin, believes that “the African Olmecs accompanied Thoth (alias Quetzlacoatl = ‘The Winged Serpent’) when Ra chased him out of Egypt, circa 3100 B.C. The Olmecs faded out of the Mesoamerican scene with the rise of the Mayas, circa 500 B.C.”(The Earth Chronicles Handbook, p. 164).

Provocative additional evidence for ancient contacts between Egypt and the Americas has recently come to light – which has sent scholars into veritable paroxysms of denial. In 1992, Dr. Svetlana Balabanova, a respected pathologist associated with the University of Ulm in Germany, analyzed samples of hair, bone and soft tissue from Egyptian mummies in the museum. She tested the samples using radioimmunoassay and gas chromatography – found no traces of opium and or lotus – but significant traces of nicotine and cocaine. Since then, Balabanova and other researchers have found nicotine and cocaine in hundreds of mummies, ranging from 800 to 3000 years of age. Now, nicotine and cocaine are only found in the tobacco and coca plants, respectively, and these are both New World plants, generally considered unknown elsewhere until after Columbus. Some scholars have pointed out that there are no representations of coca leaf or tobacco use in Egyptian paintings, though beer and opium are depicted in tomb paintings of the desired after-life. The levels of nicotine and cocaine found in the Egyptian mummies matches well with the levels found in South American mummies (Yahoo.com/question/index: Did scientists find nicotine and coca in Egyptian mummies?)

While these findings are totally in accord with the evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic trade and contacts dating to several centuries BC, current orthodox ancient history and Egyptology can’t “stomach it,” so to speak. The Yahoo expert, at the end of the article cited above, comments “Beyond the pathology results, there is little to support the idea of Egyptian trade with the New World. The Egyptians were, according to Teeter, ‘famously bad sailors’… They were incapable of crossing the Mediterranean, far less the Atlantic.” Dr. Balabanova, to her credit, does not indulge in this kind of unscientific prejudicial thinking… but simply describes her findings.

The People of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are probably best known through the films ‘ A Message from the Heart of the World’ and ‘Aluna’…

A pristine and original culture that lives close to nature, they have retreated from the advance of civilisation until they realised that it was absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity for them to communicate to the rest of the world a basic message; Change the way you live, or the balance of Nature will be broken.

Often called ‘The Elder Brother’, they see modern cultures and technological civilisation as ‘The Younger Brother’. Now, for the first time, they have sent their spiritual representatives to Australia to deliver their message.

I caught up with the ‘Elder Brothers’ by a Skype conversation with their facilliator, Nelson Caraballo, as they were visiting Uluru at the invitation of traditional keeper, Uncle Bob Randall. As Uncle Bob played guitar by the fire, I spoke with Nelson about their reflections on landing in Australia.

What is your mission in coming to Australia?

‘This is another step in a process that began years ago. This particular journey began as a response to the disaster at Fukushima. The message we are bringing is that we are living in a state of imbalance. It’s now time to take action, conscious action, to begin to restore balance to Mother Earth.’

The journey is actually the third part in a four part journey. The first leg took them to the ‘Four Corners’ region of the USA in late June/July of this year. There they met with the Native American keepers of that land and did ceremony and unified with them. Then, together with the representatives of the Diné people from the Four Corners, they went to Japan to raise awareness and do ceremony for the disaster at Fukushima. Most of the time in Japan was spent near the sacred center of Mount Fuji, where they met with local elders and representatives. The fourth, and final part of this journey will be to the volcano of Mount Etna in Italy.

‘Our guidance is telling us that we will reach Mount Etna by sometime around May of next year’. Nelson told us, ‘This whole journey is but a part of a much bigger process that is reaching out to raise awareness about the need for Earth restoration.’

‘Restore the Mother Earth’s rights to her Natural Constitution’

‘The essential message can be distilled down to the phrase ‘Restore the Mother Earth’s rights to her Natural Constitution’. We will speak more to this in the coming days. We will speak about this at UPLIFT. We will speak about what we mean exactly when we say “Natural Constitution”. The way that Modern Society is based on extraction of minerals and natural resources has to end. We have to think of the generations to come. We have to listen to the Original Peoples that have maintained a connection to nature and realise that we have become disconnected. It is time to reconnect with nature.’

Do you see this work as a Stabilisation Process for the Earth?

‘Yes. very much. By anchoring in at these four places we believe that we will be able to impact the collective consciousness. One aspect is the ceremonies that are being performed, but an even bigger component is the awareness we are raising in the collective consciousness. This is what must happen. We only chose Fukushima because it stands out, but this is not about one problem, but about the way we can transition our societies into a way of living in harmony with nature. It is not so much that the Elders want you to hear their voices, but that by listening to them, you may be able to hear the Voice of the Mother, the Voice of Spiritual Authority coming from the Earth.’

‘We are here in Australia as the result of a spiritual invitation that was actually sent several years ago. We are here at Uluru to consult with a culture that has a 60,000 year history, minimum! We need to listen to that in order to be able to function in nature for Earth restoration.’

The Mamos from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are travelling with representatives of the Diné, often known as the Navajo, from North America and with Otomi and Mexica representatives from Mexico. They will remain in Australia for UPLIFT Festival in Byron Bay (upliftconnect.com), who have been integral in funding the cost of travel for the latest part of this mission, where they will be sharing more of their message about restoring the ‘Natural Constitution’ of Mother Earth, as well as what they have learnt from their Sacred Journey with Uncle Bob Randall to Uluru.

You can watch the ‘Elder Brother’ give their message live via the UPLIFT Webcast.

Photo by Brendan Shoebridge.

The Elders are by name and Nation listed below:

• Mamo Miguel Arroyo – Wintukwa (Arhuaco): In function of the Spiritual Authority of Munvwameke and Numaka, Nabusimake. Mamo in charge of the spiritual work (healing) carried out in the initial phase in Four Corners area for the unification of the peoples and of the sacred sites. This work is complementary to the Spiritual Mandate for Unification and awareness of Life Originating Principles in collective consciousness on a global scale.

• Ñankwa Chaparro: Leader in the Wintukwa Nation, also in function of Spiritual Authority of Munvwameke and Numake, Nabusimake. Assistant and translator for Mamo Miguel. in 2011 was placed in charge by the spiritual authority of Tzchendukwa to return the sacred elements from all parts of the world in the gathering that took place in Menla in Phoenicia, NY. This process was the starting point for the Unification Process.

• Nelson Caraballo: In function of the Spirituall Authority of Munvwameke and acting on behest of the Mamos and Sagas to facilitate journeys, meetings and other actions relevant to the Unification Process for the awareness in collective consciousness of Life Originating Principles.

• Erica Ohliger: In funtion of the Mother and of Spiritual Authorities of the peoples of the North. Was brought to La Sierra in March of this year for authorization of the work being done and gave personal aburo (sacred element) being used for this specific work and journeys for healing of the waters and of sacred sites and peoples that steward them. In charge of coordinating work with peoples of the North in the Unification Process and other actions relative to this process.

• Anderson Hoskie, Navajo- Traditional Spiritual Leader and Wisdom Keeper who holds relationship with Tribal Council, working for and with troubled youth in processes to heal using traditional sacred ways. Representative of the peoples of the North that participated first stage of this work in Four Corners (Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Ancestral Puebloan).

• Mindahi Bastidas: Otomí Spiritual Leader in charge of coordinating travel logistics, translations for Elders in Mexico, present in Four Corners for intitial phase of this work. Vital in consultations that determined all the sites to be visited in this journey.

• Agustín Ranchero Márques/Abuela Guillermina (to be defined which): Elder present in initial phase of work done in Four Corners, leader of indigenous endeavors in Mexico of great value for the spiritual work done for healing of sites and their stewards in this country, as well as leader in restoring indigenous rights in Latin America.

• Armando Robles Contreras: Keeper of the Ancient Fire of the Mexica peoples in Mexico, leader in his community of ceremonies for healing of sites and the peoples, of great spiritual strength for ceremonies to be done in journey and for Unification Process.

Source: reality sandwich

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, lecturer, and author.

He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, culture, technology and the theoretical origins of human consciousness.

He was called the “Timothy Leary of the 90’s”, “one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism” and the “intellectual voice of Rave culture”

In 1969, McKenna traveled to Nepal led by his interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism. He sought out shaman of the Bon tradition, which predated Tibetan Buddhism, trying to learn more about the shamanic use of visionary plants. During his time there, he also studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until “one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs.” He then wandered through southeast Asia viewing ruins, spent time as a professional butterfly collector in Indonesia, and worked as an English teacher in Tokyo, before finally returning to Berkeley to continue studying biology, which he called “his first love”.

After the partial completion of his studies, and his mother’s death from cancer in 1971, McKenna, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca, or yagé, and fields full of gigantic Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms, which became the new focus of the expedition. In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic experiment which he claimed put him in contact with “Logos”: an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience. The voice’s reputed revelations and his brother’s simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his “Novelty Theory”.

In 1972, McKenna returned to U.C. Berkeley to finish his studies and in 1975, he graduated with a degree in ecology, shamanism and conservation of natural resources.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

[youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAGxjOr3vYA[/youtube]

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Source: Earth We Are One… More

by PL Chang: Back in the old days and the ancient times, many cultures embraced people with long hair, because they believed that long hair was a sign of strength and spiritual maturity…

Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often…

The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.
~
Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path.
Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy and greed stem
from a lost soul. Pray that they will find guidance.
~
Search for yourself, by yourself. Do not allow others
to make your path for you. It is your road, and
yours alone. Others may walk it with you,
but no one can walk it for you.
~
Treat the guests in your home with much consideration.
Serve them the best food, give them the best
bed and treat them with respect and honor.
~
Do not take what is not yours whether from
a person, a community,the wilderness or from a
culture. It was not earned nor given. It is not yours.
~
Respect all things that are placed upon
this earth – whether it be people or plant.
~
Honor other people’s thoughts, wishes and words.
Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them.
Allow each person the right to personal expression.
~
Never speak of others in a bad way. The negative
energy that you put out into the universe
will multiply when it returns to you.
~
All persons make mistakes.
And all mistakes can be forgiven.
~
Bad thoughts cause illness of the mind,
body and spirit. Practice optimism.
~
Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us.
They are part of your worldly family.
~
Children are the seeds of our future. Plant
love in their hearts and water them with
wisdom and life’s lessons. When they
are grown, give them space to grow.

~
Avoid hurting the hearts of others.
The poison of your pain will return to you.
~
Be truthful at all times. Honesty is the
test of one’s will within this universe.
~
Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental self, Spiritual
self, Emotional self, and Physical self – all need
to be strong, pure and healthy. Work out
the body to strengthen the mind. Grow
rich in spirit to cure emotional ails.
~
Make conscious decisions as to who
you will be and how you will react. Be
responsible for your own actions.
~
Respect the privacy and personal space of
others. Do not touch the personal property of
others – especially sacred and religious
objects. This is forbidden.
~
Be true to yourself first. You cannot
nurture and help others if you cannot
nurture and help yourself first.
~
Respect others religious beliefs.
Do not force your belief on others.
~
Share your good fortune with others.
Participate in charity.

Source:  Native Village… More

by Alanna Ketler: Before the Europeans came to America, it is estimated that anywhere from 1.2 million to 12 million Native Americans inhabited the land…

The population of the Native Americans was reduced to 250,000, due to mass murder, genocide, imported diseases, slavery and suicide. There is no question about it, these people suffered a great tragedy. One could argue that it is the most devastating thing to ever happen to any population of people in the history of the world. Yet, little to no attention is given to this tragedy. One has to wonder, why?

Not only were the Native American people killed, but much of their customs, traditions and spirituality were lost along with them. Perhaps this was another reason for the genocide? These people were truly connected and in tune with Mother Earth, often referred to as the Keepers of the Earth. They taught to “walk lightly upon the Earth and live in balance and harmony.” Maybe, if more of the Native Americans were alive today the Earth wouldn’t be in as much turmoil as it is. We can all benefit from adopting some of the ancient spiritual teachings from the Native American elders into our daily lives.

10 Pieces Of Wisdom & Quotes From Native American Elders

“The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.” –Big Thunder (Bedagi) Wabanaki Algonquin

“The first piece, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the Universe and all its powers and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” –Black Elk – Oglala Sioux

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” –Cree Indian Proverb

Go Forward With Courage

When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;

When doubt no longer exists for you then go forward with courage.

So long as mists envelop you, be still;

Be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists

-As it surely will.

Then act with courage.

-Ponca Chief White Eagle 

Treat the Earth well.

It was not given to you by your parents,

It was loaned to you by your children.

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,

we borrow it from our children.

-Ancient Indian Proverb 

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” –Chief Seattle 

May the stars carry your sadness away,

May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,

May hope forever wipe away your tears.

And above all, may silence make you strong.

-Chief Dan George 

“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore, among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent, or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to civilized property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.” –John (Fire) Lame Deer Sioux Lakota 

“Oh Great Spirit, help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence.” –Cherokee Prayer

“Peace and happiness are available in every moment. Peace is every step. We shall walk hand in hand. There are no political solutions to spiritual problems. Remember: if the Creator put it there, it is in the right place. The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears. Tell your people that, since we were promised we should never be moved, we have been moved five times.” –An Indian Chief

Much Love

Source: Collective Consciousness… More

Solar power can deliver heat not only more efficiently than oil but also at a much lower cost

—and, writes an architect in theStaten Island Advancenewspaper of New York City..  Ancient Indigenous Peoples are the ones to show us how.

“Native Americans in the canyons of Arizona would use the southern cliff exposure of a canyon to heat their adobe buildings cleverly placed in caves just so that the low winter sun angle would soak them with sunlight while the summer angle would be higher and therefore missing the buildings,” wrote Ciro Asperti of the American Institute of Architects’ Staten Island chapter in the borough’s main newspaper. “Tracking the sun was part of life; many activities were dependent on the seasons and the sun path. Civilizations worshipped the sun for its power to generate and sustain life.”

The technology and level of reverence for the sun may have changed over the millennia, he pointed out, but the sun, not so much.

“A building is a receptor of energy and light. Its orientation is the most important factor to observe when planning a house,” Asperti wrote in his December 6 column. “A properly oriented south facing wall will, with sufficient fenestration, allow solar energy to enter the building envelope and warm the interior.”

He offers readers a number of measures that can be taken, from tiling choices, to window size, to strategically placed outdoor canopies. Such information is especially relevant the borough strives to rebuild a year after the damage wrought by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

 … More

by Brian Daffron: Many people and images come to mind about the Cherokee Nation. 

The Cherokee Syllabary, created by Sequoyah, may be one of them.  For many others, it may be the Trail of Tears. Still, Cherokee people such as Will Rogers or Wilma Mankiller may come to mind.

Yet there is much more to the Cherokee Nation’s rich cultural history and present-day accomplishments. The Cherokee Nation’s website lists their current enrollment at over 317,000 and more than 8,000 employees. The Nation’s economic impact within Oklahoma and neighboring northeastern states, is estimated at copy.5 billion.

Indian Country Today Media Network asked Dr. Candessa Tehee, the executive director of the Cherokee Heritage Center, which ten items she felt that readers should know.

We believe in education.

Literacy and education have been a high priority among Cherokee people long before removal to Oklahoma. Sequoyah’s written language system created a high percentage of literacy among Cherokee people, much more so than their white American neighbors. The Cherokee Syllabary is still in active use within their Cherokee Immersion Charter School, as well as street signs in downtown Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

After Removal, the Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah became, according to Tehee, “the first female institution of higher learning West of the Mississippi,” whose historic buildings now form the nucleus of Northeastern State University. Today, the Cherokee Nation runs Sequoyah High School, formerly controlled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and has a successful higher education scholarship program.

There’s no such thing as a Cherokee princess

Many families throughout the United States—who are not enrolled Cherokee Nation members—make claims of Cherokee descent. Although the Cherokee Nation encourages the tracing of family ancestry, a large number of people with potential Cherokee ancestry make the erroneous claim that they’re descended from a “Cherokee Princess.”

“Our traditional clan system is matrilineal, meaning clans are passed down through the mother’s side of the family,” said Tehee. “Women have important roles in both ceremonial and family life but, historically, there has never been a princess system.” In recent times, the 1955 Cherokee National Holiday created the “Queen of the Cornstalk Shoot” (a traditional Cherokee archery competition), which was changed in 1957 to Miss Cherokee.

We have great museums

The Cherokee Nation facilitates at least four museums in northeastern Oklahoma. These include the Cherokee Heritage Center outside of Tahlequah, voted third in the USA Today “10 Best Readers’ Choice Native American Experience.” The Cherokee Heritage Center grounds include the Cherokee National Museum, Ancient Village, Adams Corner Rural Village, Nofire Farms, Cherokee Family Research Center, and the Cherokee National Archives.

Other museums of the Cherokee Nation include the Cherokee National Supreme Court Museum, which houses the printing press of theCherokee Advocatenewspaper; the Cherokee National Prison Museum, which was the only penitentiary in Indian Territory from 1875-1901; and the John Ross Museum in Park Hill, Oklahoma, dedicated to the longtime leader of the Cherokee Nation.

We embrace technology

The Cherokee Nation not only had a printing press in its own syllabary, but it is also credited with having the first telephone line west of the Mississippi. With today’s growing and ever-changing technology, Cherokee Nation has partnered with Apple, Microsoft and Google to create Cherokee language capabilities with the iPhone, Gmail and Windows 8. Therefore, if you’re scrolling through Facebook or Twitter and see Sequoyah’s writing system in someone’s postings, don’t be surprised. “We also have Cherokee in Braille,” said Tehee.

You won’t catch us taking Columbus Day off

Columbus Day is not celebrated in Cherokee country—it’s not even acknowledged as a holiday. “Our annual holiday is celebrated Labor Day weekend to acknowledge the signing of our Cherokee Constitution in September 1839,” said Tehee, “which, post-Removal, reconstituted the sovereign government we operate under today.”

Cherokee National Holiday attracts over 100,000 visitors every year, with events ranging from softball tournaments, Cherokee marbles and cornstalk shoot, to gospel singing, stomp dance, powwow and blowgun competitions.

Our plant based traditions and culture were not lost due to the removal

According to Tehee, the plants of northeast Oklahoma and western North Carolina are similar, allowing Cherokee people to retain much of the plant knowledge and pharmacology associated with pre-Removal. Some of these plants include Goldenseal, Dogwood, Prairie Willow, New Jersey Tea, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Sweet Everlasting.

Tehee breaks up Cherokee plant knowledge into three areas: Kitchen knowledge; herbs for common ailments to where “ethnobotanical knowledge” is needed, such as diabetes or hypertension; and plants used for medicine and prayers by experienced practitioners.

“There are still people who use these things,” Tehee said about plants. “It’s really interesting that a lot of the flora that’s here in Oklahoma also exists in North Carolina. Out in North Carolina, because they have a different climate, all their stuff is bigger.”

 Cherokees don’t say goodbye, instead we sayᏙᎾᏓᎪᎲᎢ(donadagohvi), which means “until we see each other again.”

“ᏙᏓᏓᎪᎲᎢ (dodadagovhi) is the plural form if you’re talking to more than one person,” Tehee said.

Sequoyah is the most recognized yet unknown

The Washington D.C.-based artist Charles Bird King (1785-1862) painted many Native leaders as they made their way into the nation’s capital. However, according to Tehee, King’s representation of Sequoyah is not actually of the Cherokee syllabary creator. Additionally, Tehee said, the sculpture of Sequoyah by G. Julian Zolnay that stands in the U.S. Capitol National Statuary Hall Collection is modeled after a Cherokee woman named Anne Ross Piburn, a descendant of Cherokee Chief John Ross.

Cherokee basketweavers are amazing and inventive!

The art form of basket making has continued with Cherokee people to this day. Today’s materials include river cane, white oak splint and commercial reed. Tehee said the single wall patterns are more common, with the double wall patterned-baskets made from river cane are more rare today.

The Cherokee Heritage Center is home to the world’s largest basket, which measures eight feet in height with a 45-inch base and is made with a single wall, flat reed technique.

Cherokee are always laughing

The humor of Cherokee tribal member Will Rogers is well known and widely publicized. For Tehee, this humor is rooted in the Cherokee language. She said the meaning of words changes completely simply by a slight change in pronunciation.

For example, Tehee said that the Cherokee words for “clap” and “slap” are the same. Tehee said there was a Cherokee preacher who “told his congregation to clap after singing.” However, one of the singers misunderstood and kept singing, because he did not want to be slapped.

“There’s no end to the puns and double-entendres that you can make with the Cherokee language just by a one-syllable difference. It changes everything.”

Also, the Number Seven…

Tehee also added a few things about the significance of the number seven to Cherokee people. The seven-pointed star can be seen not only in the tribal seal, but also in the bottom of some Cherokee baskets. Furthermore, the Cherokee have seven clans, although Tehee said historically that there could have been as many as 14 clans.

“I’ve heard some people say that we have seven directions,” she said. “I think that might be stretching it a little bit. It does lend some insight into Cherokee cosmology and perspective—there’s North, South, East, West, Up, Down and then the Place Where You Exist, basically. It’s placing yourself within this larger cosmology, essentially.

Source: Indian Country